In the News (Tue 31 Mar 15)

The prize was awarded for pioneering contributions in developing methods that can be used for theoretical studies of the properties of molecules and the chemical processes in which they are involved.

The prize money was allocated to the Main Fund (1/3) and to the Special Fund (2/3) of this prize section.

, née Marie Sklodowska, in recognition of her services to the advancement of chemistry by the discovery of the elementsradium and polonium, by the isolation of radium and the study of the nature and compounds of this remarkable element.

The NobelPrize (pronounced no-BELL) is awarded annually to people who have done outstanding research, invented groundbreaking techniques or equipment, or made outstanding contributions to society.

The first ceremony to award the NobelPrizes in literature, physics, chemistry, and medicine was held at the Old Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm in 1901; since 1902, the prizes have been formally awarded by the King of Sweden.

The prizes for physics and chemistry shall be awarded by the Swedish Academy of Sciences; that for physiology or medical works by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm; that for literature by the Academy in Stockholm, and that for champions of peace by a committee of five persons to be elected by the Norwegian Storting.

Nobelprizes have been awarded to members of Cambridge University for significant advances as diverse as the discovery of the structure of DNA, the development of a national income accounting system, the mastery of an epic and narrative psychological art and the discovery of penicillin.

That may have still been the state of affairs in 1902, although things were due to change dramatically in the second half of the decade as a result of Haber and Bosch's work on their nitrogen fixing process (completed by 1911 or 1913).

Winners of the NobelPrize are scientists, writers and peacemakers who have been awarded in their field of endeavour, and who are known collectively as either Nobellaureates or NobelPrize winners.

The NobelPrizes were created as one of the bequests in the 1895 will of Alfred Nobel, the Swedish weapons designer whose high-power explosives improved mining and lay the foundation for modern warfare.

The very first NobelPrize in Literature was awarded in 1901 to the French poet and philosopher Sully Prudhomme, who in his poetry showed the "rare combination of the qualities of both heart and intellect".

2006 NobelLaureate The Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures", was awarded the 2006 NobelPrize in Literature.

Two other scientists, Robert H. Grubbs of the United States and Yves Chauvin of France, will share the $1.3 million award with Schrock for their work on what is known as metathesis, Greek for ''changing places," and refers to a chemical dance in which parts of molecules switch places.

His chemistry career began at age 8, when he got a chemistry set and made hydrogen -- which he said exploded dramatically, in a way that would satisfy just about any kid that age.

Schrock is the second Nobel recipient from the Boston area named this week.

Kornberg is the lone winner of the 2006 chemistryprize, and the fifth American to win a Nobelprize this year.

This year's Nobel announcements began Monday, with the NobelPrize in medicine going to Americans Andrew Z. Fire and Craig C. Mello for discovering a powerful way to turn off the effect of specific genes, opening a potential new avenue for fighting diseases as diverse as cancer and AIDS.

Each prize includes a check for $1.4 million, a diploma and a medal, which will be awarded by Sweden's King Carl XVI Gustaf at a ceremony in Stockholm on Dec. 10.

A University of Sussex proposal to reduce the number of academic staff in its chemistry department from 14 to seven, change the name of the department to the department of chemical biology, and abandon chemistry degree programs has invoked impassioned responses from British chemists.

Kroto, who is now chemistry professor at Florida State University, was a member of the Sussex chemistry department when he shared the 1996 NobelPrize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes.

The department also boasts two other winners of the NobelPrize in Chemistry: Sir John W. Cornforth, who shared the 1975 NobelPrize for his work on the stereochemistry of enzyme-catalyzed reactions, and Archer J. Martin, who moved to Sussex after his 1952 Nobel for the invention of partition chromatography.

Roderick MacKinnon, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at The Rockefeller University, is one of two scientists who were awarded the 2003 NobelPrize in Chemistry for discoveries concerning channels in cell membranes.

MacKinnon shared the prize with Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins University.

“This is appropriate recognition for the beauty of MacKinnon's science and the clarity with which he expresses the biological phenomenon,” said HHMI President Thomas R. Cech, who won the NobelPrize in Chemistry in 1989.

The Swedish Academy of Sciences is of the opinion that these discoveries in the realm of the chemistry of the transuranium elements, of which I have here tried to give a brief account, are of such importance that McMillan and Seaborg have together earned the 1951 NobelPrize for Chemistry.

Among his major contributions are his discoveries, with several collaborators, of the transuranium elements plutonium (94), americium (95), curium (96), berkelium (97), and californium (98), and the study of their chemical properties and their position in the periodic table.

Analysis of COBE data was key to the "discovery of the flbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation" that won John Mather and George Smoot this year's NobelPrize in Physics.

This week, the winners of the 2006 NobelPrizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine were announced.

And Roger Kornberg won the prize in Chemistry for his work in DNA transcription, the process by which information stored in the genes is copied, and then transferred to the parts of cells that produce proteins.

Richard Axel and Linda Buck were awarded the 2004 NobelPrize in physiology or medicine for their efforts to better understand the sense of smell.

On Tuesday, the 2004 NobelPrize in physics was awarded to Americans David J. Gross, H. David Politzer and Frank Wilczeck for their exploration of the force that binds particles inside the atomic nucleus.

The prizes, which include a $1.3 million check, a gold medal and a diploma, are presented on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

www.msnbc.msn.com /id/6167875 (726 words)

German wins Nobel chemistry prize on his birthday - USATODAY.com(Site not responding. Last check: )

STOCKHOLM  Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 NobelPrize in chemistry Wednesday for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding questions such as how pollution eats away at the Earth's ozone layer.

Kydland won the prize jointly with Edward C. Prescott of Arizona State University, who was a visiting professor at UCSB in winter quarter 2004, when he held the Maxwell and Mary Pellish Chair in Economics.

Professor Gross shared the NobelPrize for solving the last great remaining problem of what has since come to be called "the Standard Model" of the quantum mechanical picture of reality.

Professor Heeger shared the NobelPrize for his role in the revolutionary discovery that plastics can have the properties of metals and semiconductors, a finding that created an important new field of research.